Some Random Thoughts About Abortion

*Abortion, to conservatives, is a horrible violent crime against the most voiceless members of society, and a form of age discrimination against fetuses (not to mention, a ploy by modernists and feminists to make women reject their revered and important motherhood status). To liberals, it is an unquestioned right, because it is only a clump of cells, which is an annoying irritant to the host and her lifestyle. But is there a third view, a sensible take on the abortion issue?

*Throughout the ages, men could force women to have abortions and kill their live children. Abortions in the Middle Ages were illegal because they covered up the evidence of extramarital affairs and sexual “misbehavior”. It had nothing to do with the sanctity of life. It was about preventing women from making their own decisions without reference to a male owner. In fact, the word “husband” is related to the phrase “animal husbandry”, which includes regulating the reproductive processes of female animals. Apparently, this includes women.

*Men complain about the fetus feeling pain from abortion procedures, such as the one in which the fetus’s brain is pierced by a tool. But who was it who invented these tools? Women? Was it not men who invented this type of abortion procedure? Is it not male science the pro-life crowd should be blaming? Shouldn’t they blame the patriarchs who wished science to be a violent penetration of the human body and the natural world? When wise women and herbal medicine practitioners used to help women abort, they gave them natural herbs and non-traumatic procedures (for mother AND fetus). The baby was gently expelled, and the mother could hold it and give it love as it passed into eternity. Nothing was pierced, burned, ripped, torn, mutilated, or otherwise medically raped. (Nothing was “lost”, since the fetus’s spirit was still there, just not confined to a human body).

*Midwives and wise women who knew how to use herbs like rue to cause abortions were hung as witches in the medieval era. They are being accused of witchcraft today, for the same reasons. If such herbal abortion methods were used (one rumor is that Vitamin C with parsley works), abortion would be much less dangerous for the mother and nonpainful to the fetus, if, in fact, it is able to feel pain. Abortion would be like a sped-up pregnancy and birth, with the baby passing away peacefully in the mother’s arms, instead of being raped with a medical tool, which is the “proper” (male) way to cause an abortion.

*Men tend to be opposed to abortion because most men are taught to fear death. Death reminds them they are not gods, and are not in control, and it also reminds them that the physical world is NOT absolute. When a creature “dies”, it doesn’t truly die. The Law of Conservation of Energy tells us that no energy in the universe is ever lost, it merely is converted, or changes form. When a human being dies, what has really happened? Has anything really been “lost”? The electricity and energy that makes up our brains and our consciousness does not go away, though it leaves our body. This is why some people recall death experiences, such as seeing their body below them, entering another area, etc. The only “death” is the connection between that spiritual matter and the arbitrary body it was inhabiting. For many pro-lifers to ignore this fact does nothing for the claim that the pro-life crowd is always more spiritual than the pro-choice crowd. For some of them, it’s not about morality, it’s about control.

*However, for others, it is a spiritual issue, or a moral issue at least.

*Is it feminist to abort? It depends on why you do it. Abortion is a moral choice, but the difference between the feminist view and the conservative view is that in the feminist view, the woman’s needs are also considered. The fetus is not a “rambunctious little aquanaut” trapped in some silent, disembodied uterine “prison”, as if the walls around him did not constitute a part of a person’s body. Both the fetus AND the mother are living beings. If you abort the fetus because you don’t feel like having a baby, or for fun, or because you don’t like kids, this would be a bad choice. However, it would not be the business of the government, because the government cannot legislate to keep one person alive at the expense of someone else’s health or pursuit of happiness. Also, since “death” is not really such, as we’ve written, there would be nothing to mourn for, especially since the baby has not had any chance to become attached to the things of this world. But most of all, it would be wrong to outlaw abortion because we have no way of knowing why a woman chooses to abort. The best we can do is to encourage mothers only to abort when necessary, and to create a society in which birth is easier and all children are welcome. However, until then, we need to have access to safe, legal abortion, both herbal and medical.

*”Why should an innocent baby be punished because of a rape?” Why should an innocent mother be punished because of a rape? The fetus will feel much less pain being aborted than the mother will feel having to relive her experience.

*Men should not be allowed to vote on the abortion issue, since laws derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Just as the right to govern one’s affairs should be expanded to include everyone the law covers, it should be contracted to exclude those it does not. It would be absurd for a woman in Mississippi to be allowed to vote on the laws governing a person in Switzerland. Similarly, it’s absurd for a man to vote on something that concerns only women’s bodies.

*Most people do not use abortion as birth control, since abortions are expensive, and since they are invasive and dangerous. This is a false claim.

*A large percentage of fertilized eggs are naturally expelled by a woman’s body, which means abortion would only be helping along a potentially natural process.

*The truth is, neither the pro-life crowd nor the pro-choice crowd knows if a fetus is alive, or knows when it becomes alive if it happens at a particular time. In fact, no one even has a real definition of what “life” or “alive” means. Is a human alive? An embryo? A sperm? A fish? Trees? Rocks? The only wise thing we can conclude is that everything is alive to some extent, but some things are more or less complex than others, meaning they have a more advanced level of consciousness. To have less thought-power or less complexity to your consciousness doesn’t mean you are less alive. If so, stupid people and toddlers would be “less alive” than intelligent adults.
Pro-choice advocates who are convinced the baby isn’t alive until the very second it exits the mother are just as thick-headed as those who are convinced it’s alive from the second of conception. There is no evidence either way. (And if a baby is halfway born, is its head alive but not its feet??)
What no one wants to admit is that whether or not the fetus is alive, the mother has the right to abort. We have already established that death is not evil, and that there are worse fates than death.

*The so-called “feminist” approach to the abortion issue is to deny the life of the fetus, and to look at the issue from a lens of expedience and physical “reality”. This is a highly UNfeminist way to view any issue, since expediency and the narrowing of one’s range of consciousness is how patriarchy wants people to think (they call this way of “thinking” masculine).

*Many of those who oppose abortion in all circumstances feel this way because they are in tune with life and believe all things are special and should be acknowledged. They have the attitude of Dr. Seuss’s Horton, who hears a tiny creature called a Who, and refuses to ignore his instincts to notice it and help it when it is in trouble. They feel they are betraying the baby by refusing to acknowledge that it is alive, as everything is. They point to how both pro-life and pro-choice couples alike show people pictures of their sonograms, calling the being inside their son or daughter, and call liberal pro-choice advocates hypocrites for calling unwanted fetuses dead and wanted fetuses alive. They are right. But only halfway. They are right that everything has a life and spirit and that we must be conscious of this. They are wrong that letting something die means you are not aware of its spirit, or that you do not accord love to it. Sometimes giving something back to the eternal is the most loving thing you can do, such as in the case of a poor minority mother who has to deal with poverty, illness, and racism, or in the case of a woman who will be traumatized by the birth. No child would want to put his mother through that, and since death is NOT evil and is NOT a problem, one person taking death so the other may be saved from a safe worse than death is more noble an idea than avoiding death at all costs.

*The problem many pro-life advocates have with abortion is not the taking of the life, but with people refusing to be conscious of the life.

*Outlawing abortions means women will have to give birth even if it causes them blindness, as is the case of a woman in heavily Catholic Poland. They may bleed to death, undergo severe pain if their bodies are not up to the task of birth, and may even break their tailbone in labor. Some women are made to carry their dead fetuses to term, and to give birth to babies who are deformed and will live in agony for a few hours, instead of aborting them before they have enough nerve endings or brain structure to feel anything.

*In a society run by women, or run with women’s interests in mind, abortion would be much less necessary because birth would be less traumatic for most women, and because society would be willing to provide for families and everyday life. Birth would not be the traumatic painful event it currently is for some women. There do exist painless births and many relatively comfortable ones. (Look up home birth advocate Laura Shanley). However, because of patriarchal medicine and prejudice-ridden ignorance about women’s bodies and health, births are made much more painful and difficult than they already are. Perhaps if we bring birth back to women’s hands, less abortions would need to occur.

*”The father should have some say because it’s his child, too!” Wrong. It’s not about whose child it is; it’s about whose body it is. It is not the father’s body, so he should have no say. Furthermore, no one “owns” a child; you have no right to say a child is “yours” just because your body created it. The idea that biological parentage means you should love or be connected to your child more is egoist and patriarchal- “I love something because it has something to do with me.” This attitude is very insulting to children who were adopted or raised by non-related persons. Many fathers use the excuse that it’s “their child, too” because they see children as property. Some fathers see the baby as a person and don’t like the idea that it will not be given a chance to live, but this is a moot point, since the baby likely never developed into a conscious person, and since death is not the end, but just the exiting of the consciousness from the arbitrary physical body it was incarnating into. Nothing ever “dies.”

*”You support abortion because you believe it should be legal.” No. I strongly oppose abortion, though I would make it legal. I also strongly oppose vomiting; I think vomiting is unpleasant and should be avoided. However, I would not make it illegal. Just because something is unfortunate does not mean it should be made illegal. Nor should something be considered an absolute evil if there are worse consequences that can be avoided by doing it. In the case of vomiting, it is unpleasant, but being sick forever or having permanent damage to your body would be worse. Likewise it’s unfortunate a fetus will never reach the outside world, it is a disappointment, but there are worse consequences, like the mother enduring trauma or dying, the fetus being born with severe pain, or the baby having to live in misery and poverty once it’s born. Death is not the worst thing in the world. Suffering is. Apathy is.

*Since abortions are less traumatic to the fetus and the mother if done in the first trimester, it is important to let women know they have the option to abort, so they can choose as quickly as possible.

*Women should be encouraged not to abort in the same sense as they should be encouraged not to sell their home to pay their way out of poverty; it is an unfortunate choice which should be avoided, but it is not the end of the world, and it may be worse than the alternative. It must always be allowed because we do not know the circumstances, under which the good of all those involved may prefer it.